Timeline for Did Robert E. Howard seriously think that Barbarism is the superior and most natural state of humanity?

Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0

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Aug 20, 2020 at 1:34	comment	added	Owen Reynolds		@KeithMorrison Sure, you need fallen empires for the ancient hidden treasures. But the published stories never show barbarians taking over, then doing a better job, as if Howard had something to prove to us. Conan becomes king with the help of Aquilonian nobles and doesn't seem to make sweeping reforms (he allows Ashura-worship, but that's been done before).
Aug 19, 2020 at 5:01	comment	added	Keith Morrison		really? The essay "The Hyborian Age" written by Howard starts with the decaying Pre-Cataclysmic Thurian kingdoms who were being taken over by barbarians (as Conan would later take over his own), and then describes several thousand years of civilizations rising only to fall, either directly to invading barbarians or more gently as the barbarians came in, often as mercenaries, and gradually took over.
Aug 19, 2020 at 4:18	vote	accept	VienLa
Aug 19, 2020 at 3:36	comment	added	Owen Reynolds		@KeithMorrison It's a long way from "REH thought X" to "X was a deeply held conviction which he used his stories to proclaim". I mean, in Hyperboria there were lots of kingdoms fighting, but I don't think any barbarian invasions except Archeron 3 millennia earlier.
Aug 18, 2020 at 23:14	comment	added	Keith Morrison		Howard was combining two things: his honest belief in the cyclic nature of civilization combined with fantasy and magic and mythology...and tossed in, essentially, a character we'd later recognize as akin to the stereotypical John Wayne cowboy, or Dirty Harry. The tough, no-nonsense man of action, streetwise, cynical at the corruption around him, and willing to cut through the bullshit with a gun (or an axe).
Aug 18, 2020 at 22:40	history	answered	Owen Reynolds	CC BY-SA 4.0